Almost everyone wants to help the poor. In a world where many demand profits of 10%, 20%, 30% or more on their money, people donate to the poor despite a return of "negative 100%," said Alex Counts, president and chief executive of the Grameen Foundation, which is dedicated to lifting people out of poverty by lending them money so that they can start small businesses.
Few people seem to consider the middle path pioneered by Grameen Bank, an institution that revolutionized methods of dealing with poverty through lending to the poor. Loans from Grameen Bank help people, most of them Bangladeshi women, to buy animals, open food stands and purchase phones that owners can rent out to generate profits. Why do most anti-poverty programs emphasize charitable giving over help to entrepreneurs? One reason, Counts said, is that people of relative privilege assume that the poor aren't educated or experienced enough to succeed in business.
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